Friday, October 03, 2008

4.o3 "In the Beginning"


This was truly a show of heartbreak. Allow me to begin:


Well, Mary made a deal. Castiel says the D word (Destiny) and we find out why Dean has no grandparents.

Slowing down…Dean learns Mary is a hunter from a hunter family. John, is a civilian, “about the farthest thing from a hunter.” Mary tells Dean.

Castiel tells Dean you have to stop it. Dean doesn’t know what at first, but eventually deducts that he needs to stop Mary from making a deal. He’s too late! Castiel whisks him back to the future and tells him that he couldn’t have stopped it anyways, it was destiny that the demon would feed Sam his blood, but what Castiel doesn’t know is for what endgame…for what purpose.

We learn that Azazel was “cultivating” potential psychic kids by gaining the permission of the parent in a ten year deal. He apparently was creating many of these deals so he could find the best one. He sniffs at Mary and is very turned on by her sent. It seems all demons can smell souls, for later on he smells Dean to see if he is the psychic kid, he can tell Dean is not. Which brings to mind the demon waitress saying she could smell Sam’s soul.

I may have to concede that Sam wasn’t born with powers. The episode wasn’t clear. Azazel said he was creating the deals to later create psychic kids, so it’s hard to say if it was the blood baptism that granted powers or not. We’ll still have to wait on that.

What we do know is Mary did not have powers. But her soul had a certain appeal to it.

Now Dean knows what happened November 2, 1983. He doesn’t even know that Sam is privy to this info.

And we all know why Mary said, “I’m sorry” to Sam way back in season one. Ah, Kripke! You’ve planned it out so well.

I don’t think Sam’s name is spoken in the entire episode with the exception of Dean saying: “Sam, wherever you are, Mom’s a babe.” In the scene with Azazel, Dean doesn’t speak Sam’s name and Azazel just says, “you have a brother?” Later, in the hotel room Castiel glances at Sam’s empty bed, Dean’s eyes follow and they talk of Sam without saying his name.

And of course we now know when the Impala came into John Winchester’s life! And yes, the girl got more screen time than Sammy who was conspicuously missing from the bookends of the episode. I didn’t notice his absence during the back to the Future trip. The time in the past and my curiosity over how much would be revealed made it speed by even faster than the premiere! And I know my favorite damned character will be back, but if I think too hard on it I do feel a little empty without Sam, a little less complete.

Finally, despite his physical presence, this episode was all about Sam. It was how evil came into his life (via his mother’s desperate deal), how hunting destroyed the gentle nature of John Winchester in a way Vietnam even didn’t, pulling both boys into the hunting life their mother wanted so badly to escape; how Azazel’s actions were not to be prevented, and how prophetic John’s words to Dean were, echoed by Castiel.

“Your brother is headed down a dangerous road. So stop it. Or we will.”
Oh Castiel....so that's what you met by you have to stop it? And the show ends with TBC. Oh, thanks a lot.
The waiting is the hardest part!

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